chlorpyrifos

An Agri-Pulse report says that six states, including both California and New York, have filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency.

The suit alleges that the EPA’s decision to allow continued use of Chlorpyrifos (Klor-PEER-ih-fahs) didn’t ensure that infants and children were protected. “Chlorpyrifos causes significant harm to our children, farmworkers, and vulnerable communities,” says California Governor Gavin Newsom.

“California is doing its part to address the harms of this pesticide and it’s time for D.C. to do theirs.” The states filed their lawsuit on the same day that a coalition of environmental, farmworker, and other groups also sued the EPA over the same decision. The EPA says it didn’t have enough evidence of the insecticide’s neurodevelopmental effects to justify revoking its use.

The states are saying that the EPA didn’t comply with the language in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act that requires the agency to “ensure that there’s reasonable certainty that no harm will result to infants and children from exposure over time to the pesticide’s chemical residue.” The groups’ lawsuit says, “Rather than carrying the burden of finding that the tolerances of Chlorpyrifos are safe, the EPA wrongly placed the burden on the petitioners to furnish “valid, complete, and reliable data that set forth why tolerances are unsafe.”

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